The Jharkhand government has launched a new scheme to benefit labourers engaged in the construction sector recently, said state labour minister K N Tripathy today.
"We have launched a scheme named Sarswati Yojana on September 10 for labourers engaged in construction work," Tripathy, who was in the steel city to take part in a review meeting of his department here, said.
Addressing a press conference at Tilak Pustakalay (Congress bhawan), he said an account with Rs 5,000 would be opened in the name of a new-born girl child in a labourer's family.
The amount would be continuously deposited by the government for the next five years and the corpus would be about Rs one lakh when the girl attains her maturity, he said adding the amount could be utilised for her further education or marriage.
The scheme was applicable for all girl children born after March 31, he said.
Expressing dissatisfaction over lack of publicity of the scheme in the East Singhbhum district which was launched about three weeks ago, the minister directed the district administration to take initiatives in publicising the scheme.
The government would soon notify benefits for construction labourers unable to afford medical expenses for treatment of incurable diseases, he said.
On the review meeting, Tripathy said 18,000 new members have been included in the existing list of old age pension scheme beneficiaries in the district.
The old age pension beneficiaries, which was 42,000 at present, would now go up to 60,000, he said adding the total number of beneficiaries under various schemes under his department was 10 lakh.
The minister also stressed on proper utilisation of rural development funds.
